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Planned Feature Auto Equip crew instead of weapons locker

Jack Rackham

Jack Rackham

ex train dispatcher
Quest Writer
Storm Modder
It is much easier to stick some good stuff in there and have the crew take the good stuff out of it than to give stuff individually to them all.
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Yes. I meant if the boarding crew behaved more like the landcrew and autoequipped themselves. And why not officers too? Disable the exchange items interface between pchar and officers. Then we really could limit the inventory.
 
It does limit the player's control. At least with the Weaponslocker players, can decide what sort of stuff they want to give to their crew (and officers?).
Even if the crew subsequently decides what to take for themselves. It is also a method to supply them with potions, armor and cursed coins.
So I'm not too fond of the idea of losing that altogether. I'd rather see its use expanded so at least you don't need to equip individual characters.
 
I prefer to equip the officers directly. Partly so I can decide who gets what. And partly so I can keep an eye on their supplies and top up their bandages and ammo as needed, also replace their swords when those deteriorate. Especially when we're half way across an island, or after completing one deck of a boarding action.
 
Jack Rackham said:
Yes. I meant if the boarding crew behaved more like the landcrew and autoequipped themselves. And why not officers too? Disable the exchange items interface between pchar and officers. Then we really could limit the inventory.
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Couldn't we for example add a dialog option to the first mate where you can order him to take care of the weapons for crew. You could make him care for just the crew or also the officers. If you choose him to take care of it the weapons locker wont be needed anymore and you can't exchange with officers anymore. We could add a amount of money needed every now and then for resupplying or something like that. You could even tie it to the rank of the first mate. The higher he is the better gear your crew has.
 
In HOO the topic of inventory came up some time ago. It sounded like the idea was to minimize
micromanaging. I liked that.

Using the weaponslocker for officers too is better than the current situation.
 
Levis said:
Couldn't we for example add a dialog option to the first mate where you can order him to take care of the weapons for crew. You could make him care for just the crew or also the officers. If you choose him to take care of it the weapons locker wont be needed anymore and you can't exchange with officers anymore. We could add a amount of money needed every now and then for resupplying or something like that. You could even tie it to the rank of the first mate. The higher he is the better gear your crew has.
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I do like your thinking there. :yes

Another idea would be to have a dialog option that automatically buys new stuff based on your new minlevel and overwrites officers' weapons that are inferior to what is now available.
That way you could do an "instant upgrade" of all your officers' weapons, but officers with super stuff won't lose theirs.
You do have to pay for that; it just saves you the trouble of doing it manually. Then if you're not happy with what it did, you can always requip certain officers manually afterwards.
If it works well, the only manual action needed by the player is to tell the First Mate to "please upgrade our weapons collection" whenever you feel it is needed.
 
Jack Rackham said:
Good idea. :onya
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I believe you know this system better then I do.
But there is an auto equip already right? How hard would it be to calculate a "cost" from that which is removed from the crew money for example.
And how hard would it be to add a switch to either use the auto equip or the weapons chest.
Disabling the exchange icon for officers isn't that much of a problem. We do need to think about quest officers tough. I don't know for sure but I think you do want to be able to still exchange with them or exclude them out of the auto equip etc.
 
Levis said:
Disabling the exchange icon for officers isn't that much of a problem. We do need to think about quest officers tough. I don't know for sure but I think you do want to be able to still exchange with them or exclude them out of the auto equip etc.
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Indeed. Some thoughts:
- Never auto-equip characters with the .questch attribute (that attribute is already in place)
- Never auto-equip characters with a worse weapon than they already had
- Only auto-equip when the player asks for it, so that any manual change isn't overridden on a daily(?) basis

And what about suppling characters with potions/armour/cursed coins?
Right now that is all possible through personal exchange for officers and Weaponslocker for boarding crew.
I wouldn't want to lose that functionality.
 
Pieter Boelen said:
If it works well, the only manual action needed by the player is to tell the First Mate to "please upgrade our weapons collection" whenever you feel it is needed.
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So if you don't give any such order to the first mate, you can continue to equip your officers as you see fit without such interference? And you can continue to use the weapons locker to equip crew as now?

What happens if you don't have a first mate, e.g. because it's a new game and you haven't found one yet?
 
I think untill you've found a first mate you have to do it yourself.
At way once you got a first mate you can focus on more important stuff. Isn't that how officers should work.
 
Grey Roger said:
So if you don't give any such order to the first mate, you can continue to equip your officers as you see fit without such interference? And you can continue to use the weapons locker to equip crew as now?
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That's what I would imagine, yes.
Perhaps we could get away with:
- Getting crewmembers to always equip from the Weaponslocker, also the shore and ship deck ones
- Do this every time you board the ship, similar to the Gunner providing you with ammo
- For officers, have a dialog option for the First Mate to auto-equip your officers once from the Weaponslocker
- Have the officers return their weapons TO the Weaponslocker first, so they don't get lost
- Equip officers in your shore party first, so they get the best things; alternatively, equip ONLY those in your shore party
- Possibly skip quest characters in this whole process
- Possibly include the shore crewmembers in this as those are fixed characters, just like officers
- Remove weapons from ship deck crewmembers altogether, since they don't need them when they're sailing the ship (and they would be locked away in.... the Weaponslocker! :cheeky )

Grey Roger said:
What happens if you don't have a first mate, e.g. because it's a new game and you haven't found one yet?
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What Levis said. As long as you don't have a First Mate, you have to do it yourself.
 
As long as you don't have a First Mate, you have to do it yourself.
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I like that kind of progress in a game. First it may be fun to fix with small things as items but as all values/status/levels
improve you can concentrate on other things. Maybe you have a small fleet of 4 vessels. The scale is changed.
 
Jack Rackham said:
I like that kind of progress in a game. First it may be fun to fix with small things as items but as all values/status/levels
improve you can concentrate on other things. Maybe you have a small fleet of 4 vessels. The scale is changed.
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Yep. That has definitely been one of my philosophies for HoO as well.
In the early game while the scale is small, it is OK to have the player micromanaging. But as the scale increases, the focus should shift to other things.
 
The amount of micromanaging needed to equip companion officers never changes. There are only three of them. There may, of course, be more stuff in your inventory unless you have chosen to put some of it into the ship's locker - once again, this should be a matter of player choice, we should not dictate that everyone must play the game the way we want.

In any case, quest characters have to be left out of this auto-equip. Some of them are very protective of their equipment - see how far you get if you try to swap equipment with Danielle, for example. And if the quest character disappears due to being a quest character whose role in the quest is over, anything which was auto-equipped to him disappears with him, which will be a bit annoying if companion officers are auto-equipped with the best stuff. Besides, quest characters are often immortal and therefore don't need fancy equipment to stay alive. (And then there's Chico Cois in the "Assassin" story, who goes from being a companion to being an enemy and anything with which he was auto-equipped will subsequently be used against you...)
 
Grey Roger said:
The amount of micromanaging needed to equip companion officers never changes. There are only three of them. There may, of course, be more stuff in your inventory unless you have chosen to put some of it into the ship's locker - once again, this should be a matter of player choice, we should not dictate that everyone must play the game the way we want.
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Indeed just the three officers isn't THAT much work for the player.

Grey Roger said:
In any case, quest characters have to be left out of this auto-equip. Some of them are very protective of their equipment - see how far you get if you try to swap equipment with Danielle, for example. And if the quest character disappears due to being a quest character whose role in the quest is over, anything which was auto-equipped to him disappears with him, which will be a bit annoying if companion officers are auto-equipped with the best stuff. Besides, quest characters are often immortal and therefore don't need fancy equipment to stay alive. (And then there's Chico Cois in the "Assassin" story, who goes from being a companion to being an enemy and anything with which he was auto-equipped will subsequently be used against you...)
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Agreed. That's already in my earlier suggestion. :yes
 
I must admit I personally don't like the new land crew equipping. I preferred having to equip them myself - at least, I would prefer the land crew taking the weapons from the weapons locker (or that possibly even best option?).

I'm pretty sure this is a point where we cannot satisfy all wishes at once - except: configurable!!! That would be my prosition, let the player decide. So somewhere in the options menu:

==Equipment:==
Boarding crew:
* equip from weapons locker
* equip automatically (gives some weapon in relation to player's current one)
Land crew:
* equip manually (give weapons via talking to them)
* equip from weapons locker
* equip automatically (gives some weapon in relation to player's current one)
Officers:
* equip manually (give weapons via talking to them)
* equip from weapons locker
* equip automatically (gives some weapon in relation to player's current one)
 
I do think there is a toggle on the Weapons Locker. Or once was in any case.

The shore crew auto equipping was added mainly as the simplest fix we could think of for some sort of bug with crew weapons that I now cannot remember.
 
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